At Wednesday’s rededication ceremony of the Saudi-funded Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., President Bush missed a perfect opportunity to repudiate apologism for radical Islam, and instead announced his latest plan to get the Muslim world to stop hating America: appoint a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
And who would be president of a newly joined continent? Why, fearless — er, feckless — leader Moammar Gadhafi, of course, who said Africa must “unite or die.”
Whatever the opposite of “prescient” is, that’s Los Angeles Times reporter Maria L. La Ganga. Here’s the lede on her June 28th article about Rudy Giuliani’s core campaign message: “The world according to Rudolph W. Giuliani is a very, very scary place.”
Most analysts tend to agree (as of the end of June 2007) that a new reality has transformed the geopolitics of the Palestinian territories to the disadvantage of all parties claiming to represent the “Palestinian cause.” And certainly among the most extreme critics of the recent events in Gaza are the Palestinian citizens who witnessed the horrors that took place in those areas. Since 1947, generations of civilians have lost hope and paid the price of misjudged and misused leadership, which continues to allow the repetition of what we, today, see are the victims of the latest bloody civil war among Palestinians.
Oman (Oman), June 17, 2007. The TV announcer says: “the bulletin that reached us states that the Palestinians will attempt to liberate Palestine from the Palestinian occupation!” (source: MEMRI)
Several years ago, writing ESPN’s SportsCentury, I interviewed college football’s nonpareil Voice, then weighing retirement. I asked if he had tired of Touchdown Jesus and Happy Valley and Army’s long, gray line.
I am a Christian. I am also a political conservative. According to Mark Joseph’s terribly misguided article, I am a member of the Christian right-wingers who did not appreciate Hollywood trying to mix entertainment and religion in the tongue in cheek saga of Noah. I appreciate Hollywood trying to make a funny movie. I did not appreciate Steve Carell trying to carry a film. THAT…was the problem, not the blending of God and humor.
Instead of at least acknowledging that this kind of brainwashing of children - ubiquitous in the Palestinian territories and pervasive in other parts of the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan - is, at the very least, disturbing, he downplayed the problem.
In “An Odd Understanding Reached in Israeli Prisons,” Neil Genzlinger shows what a great ignoramus he can be by demonstrating how misleading a documentary can be. What did Neil ignore? That she was an accessory to mass murder. The father of one of her victims cannot but cry out in pain: “That female is our child’s murderer.” This is his letter. I refuse to post her smiling face but do look at the victim:
Some on the Left (here a few at Kaily Dos) so hate George Bush that they are ridiculing the London bombing this morning as, variously, a put-up job by Dick Cheney (seriously), the work of the “retarded” (not kidding here), a message to the new PM from the Bush administration–anything but even possibly a coordinated act of terror. I believe if these folks were in charge, or at least had a Dem in the White House, they (well, most of them) would never dream of saying, let alone writing, such paranoid foolishness. Read that website any day of the week, and note well how easy it is to be irresponsible when one’s words have no consequences.
Good news. FT reports:Outrage over SEC terrorism ‘blacklist.’ They may be outraged but I am delighted. If only USG had done this in 2001 or 2002 we would be in better shape now. But, never mind. It does me good to see Total SA warning easily available to consumers with a conscience:
Gordon Brown just took over from Tony Blair as British prime minister, and just got his first shot across the bow with an attempted car bombing in Piccadilly Circus. From what they’re saying on Sky News right now, the driver of the Mercedes that carried an explosive device crashed into a Dumpster just as nightclubs in the neighborhood were about to let out for the evening, then jumped out and ran away. They also noted that the anniversary of the 7/7 tube/bus bombings is swiftly approaching, and that this weekend is the big Concert for Diana. Scotland Yard won’t comment on reports (which apparently are circulating widely, as I got such reports in my e-mail before I even knew about the story) that in addition to the confirmed gas cannisters in the vehicle, it was also packed with nails for maximum impact.
As you read this, the following item from the Taipei Times is being forwarded from Washington outbox to Beltway inbox, setting hearts aflutter and livers atwitter (emphasis added):
A measure of the American left’s current divorce from the most basic elements of free expression and free markets is their rush attempt to muzzle conservative talk radio by regulation. The House wisely voted today to make it impossible to re-fund the so-called “Fairness” Doctrine. (This particular move involves the Democrats’ gambit to assert that the doctrine was never really rolled back–one of those “by any means necessary” attempts of theirs.)
To my delight, slowly but surely, the suggestion that outrage and petitions are insufficient responses to the British “boycott Israel” movement is gaining steam. A Canadian professor responded to my article on the subject with the following suggestions:
Here’s a story in which a purportedly “empirical” study determined that one in six jury verdicts is incorrect. Now, let’s consider that assertion for a second or two. Isn’t a jury’s decision correct by definition?
Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have a habit of making outrageous statements. In the latest, he compared Soviet atrocities under Stalin to American actions during wartime. “Yes, we had terrible pages [in our history],” Putin acknowledged, noting Stalin’s 1934-38 Red Terror, when one of every eight Soviet citizens perished. “Let us not forget that. But in other countries, it has been said, it was more terrible.”
Why exactly have the deaths of Kimberly Vaughn and her three murdered children so intrigued us these past dozen days? Because we’re ghouls? I don’t think so. First, it was a classic locked room who-done-it mystery — four bodies in an SUV at the side of the road and the sole survivor, husband Chris Vaughn, claiming to be a dazed survivor who didn’t even remember hearing the shots.From the start, the idea that the wife committed this crime struck me as outside the realm of human experience. All those mothers who kill their kids invariably have long histories of mental illness or disapproving boyfriends. Kimberly Vaughn seemed to have neither.
Over the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed fewer and fewer Ron Paul-related stories on the front page of Digg. Maybe Kevin Rose had the monkeys tweak the algorithm a little more? Nah, more likely they were out drinking beers.
The publication of the CIA’s “family jewels”––the record of its domestic spying, hare-brained plots against Castro, and mind-control experiments, among other oddities–– is sure to add fuel to that roaring bonfire of a myth that so-called “progressives” have been warming their egos at for forty years.
On Wednesday, in a radio interview with Sean Hannity, Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) confirmed most Americans’ worst fears about their Congressional representatives: they couldn’t care less about what most Americans want.
This week they honored two celebrities for being outstanding vegans. I looked at them and scanned the list of past winners and was impressed with how thin and beautiful they were. I made a decision to become one of them. It was time to get healthy in the prime of my life. I was going to become a non-meater and join the Land that Time Forgot. Dinosaurs, reptiles, “Weird Al” Yankovic and me. There was one teeny problem…
Sometimes I believe I live in the world of Alice in Wonderland. Today’s Financial Times Amy Kazmin writes an article entitled Thai Islamic insurgency escalates. I would think that escalation would mean that terrorist moved from targeting soldiers, policemen or other public officials to targeting civilians or worse of all, women and children. For Ms. Kazmin attacking schools, i.e., buildings, teachers, librarians and perhaps even students is legitimate because they are symbols of the state: